I only mentioned flight control laws as an example. I assume bits of Nimrod are safety critical and include software? Stores management and primary flight reference data displays spring to mind as possible candidates. The rules for critical software development will still apply, hence software development costs are therefore comparable. This is logical because the risks have similar impacts - e.g. potential loss of life.

Yes I think you can assume that Nimrod does have safety critical code and likely in the areas you've mentioned.

But to go back to your intial suggestion:
Those being derived from Airbus. The Boeing TCS is a version of the P8 kit and various other bits of existing kit culled from here and there, and might together add up to 6 million lines of code.

But clearly not all that code was developed just for those 12 Nimrods, even if the UK taxpayer is being charged as though it was.

For anyone wondering why we wouldn't go and buy the P-8 Poseiden instead of MRA4, the reasoning would be somehting like this - even if it can do it's job, and do it well, it's first flight isn't till next year, and then it goes on to testing. Then the fleet of 108 aircraft for the US Navy will be built. Then the ones for the Australians.


How many years down the line will it be before we get ours then....?


Because unlike Typhoon and the Saudi's, I can't see Boeing giving away some of their machines to us instead of giving them to the Navy...

Bear in mind my point was only being made in big handfuls and I don't doubt that the reuse / adaptation of existing airbus flight deck solutions reduced some of the costs of starting from scratch. However - nothing safety critical is ever cheap as you must always re anaylse the application of existing implementations in new platforms to ensure you understand the relevant risks and failure modes. The Ariane 5 project team learned this the hard way when they took Ariane 4 INS kit "off the shelf" and applied it "on the cheap".

Yes the race is definetly on now, which will be finished first, MRA4 or P8...

Dashed generous of the RAF to let our chums the Saudi's have some of our front line jets, when there is such a pressing need for them.

Of course there are those who believe that the original RAF order was overstated - and thus the UK slice of the action within the workshare is overgenerous - in the full knowledge that those jets WOULD be going to Saudi.

Normally Eurofighter would expect to share the export order equally, so all would get a bit of the gravy, as they did with Austria.

Now this isn't a Eurofighter thread but there are those who believe that parts of the UK industry are out of their depth trying to make some of the parts for THAT mighty machine, did somebody mention the primary radar?

According to the Northern Scot flight trials of the MRA4 have swallowing up about 50% of the entire spend!

Source: http://www.northern-scot.co.uk/news/...mrod'.html

If it is to have an in service life of 25-30 years, won't the fuselages be almost 75-80 years old when have done their time:eek::eek:

Just like they did with the C17 you mean????????:ugh::ugh:

According to the Northern Scot flight trials of the MRA4 have swallowing up about 50% of the entire spend!


Quote:
The majority of the overspend has come about during the flight trials process, which has highlighted the need for modifications. There are problems with the pitch of the aircraft – something which the MoD says is not unusual – and that has accounted for about half the cost growth.
Source: http://www.northern-scot.co.uk/news/...mrod'.html

Is the "porpoising" still a problem, detected at first flight?

The Aussies (and possibly Indians) will not have to stand in line behind the USN - they will get jets in parallel. Building another 6 737s in a given year is not exactly a big deal in Renton... from that point on it's a matter of capacity in the modification line.
The program's health right now is mainly a matter of software, which is indeed a big deal but (on the bright side) the Navy and Boeing know that this is where the risks are, and otherwise there is not much new in terms of electronics; it's either OTS, directly borrowed from the P-3 or upgraded P-3 kit.
It's even possible that if the RAF just wanted ASW/ASUW they could get earlier IOC than the USN, but off the top of my head I don't know what extras (SLAMs, ESM capability &c) are included in IOC.

From Northern Scot
Its not really clear from this reporting which overspend is being referred to - the massive one from a few years back or the more recent 07-08 increases. It sounds like they are actually being criticised for the recent increases (i.e. ontop of the previous £700m ones) which are it seems more modest in scale. If this is true the flight trials increases would be half of the 3% increase, or 1.5% of the total.
EDIT - just read in an earlier post that the recent overspend is an additional £100m, hence £50m for the additional 'flight test' related problem - whatever that is/was.

Finding problems late on in development programmes is always the most expensive time to find them.

Continuing my chalk and cheese comparison series of posts, another real world example to consider is the Mercedes A Class. Costing $1.5Bn to develop, the fact that they discovered it had a safety flaw (it rolled over during an Elk swerving test) after already having delivered nearly 3000 cars to customers cost them $250m to put right. This effectively represents a 16% increase in the initial development cost - ouch!

Which the customers did not have to pay for.....

They would if they'd ordered it specially and only bought 12 A Classes. If they only made 12, each one would have cost $125m. After the elk problem, each one would have ended up costing the customer nearly $150m.

As it happens they sold over a million copies of the original A Class, hence the cost growth would have amounted to less than $250 a unit. This cost may have been passed on, who knows?

The business/finance models between selling 12 and 1,000,000 of a given product are clearly quite different, but the principle point is that late emerging problems in complex engineering programmes are expensive to fix, and can be a significant proportion of the original development estimates. Its not just "evil complacent etc. defence contractors" who regularly face such challenges.

Yes its big news, - sometimes high volume car manufacturers screw up as well as defence contractors - the main points being when they do
a) It doesn't effect operational capability
b) I as a tax payer don't have to pay for it.

One could go on and mention that if the operators of military kit had a mere fraction of the right of redress of complaint that normal consumers have it would focus the minds enormously - to the extent that risk assessment would probably drive the prudent shareholders of BAE right out of the manned aircraft buisiness.

But that might just be stretching a chalk and cheese comparison too far...

Tigs,
not a problem really - no more than flying BE2's in Gulf 1, for example...

I was involved with it for nearly 5 years before I managed to escape. It is the most frustrating project I've ever worked on. I'm not sorry to have left it. I do feel sorry for the many talented people working on this project who, once again, have the axe hanging over them. It isn't a great working environment I can assure you.

Indeed, so why has PA1 been returned to carry on the flying programme out of Warton?

Yes. The aircraft is inherently unstable. This has been addressed by an Stability Augmentation System, which works very well. But, lets be honest, it ought to be; its only an autopilot at the end of the day. However, in principle, it is only papering over the cracks. No large aircraft should have to use an autopilot to maintain straight and level flight. If the SAS is not working, the continual demand on the pilot becomes unacceptable; hence the need for the system.

EdSet100,

There's quite a difference between an SAS and an Autopilot.

The MRA4 issue is, as I understand it, poor handling qualities in pitch. This is being fixed via a new full authority pitch stab system ( a bit more involved than a traditional SAS). Once that is sorted, the autopilot system has a chance to work.

The issue of how long this was known about is a good one to raise, though. I've been told that it was raised as an issue early on, but pushed to one side as the team struggled to get the project to fit within the (original) price the BAES managers had agreed with the MoD.

This could turn out to be a classic example of saving ten quid up front to spend a few hundred downstream...only add a few noughts on.

Be interesting to see whether this one ever gets fully investigated in public - don't hold your breath...

Ed,

The aircraft is not inherently unstable (ala Typhoon), it is longitudinally stable but at some parts of the envelope that stability is somewhat relaxed which leads to the prblems identified. The aircraft will not fall out of the sky and is still controllable. It is the amount of capacity the pilot has to use to maintain for instance height and or speed that leaves limited capacity to carry out other routine cockpit tasks.

As engines has stated, the SAS is far more than an autopilot. It has varialbe gains for different parts of the envelope and compensaion terms for flaps power airbrake etc. It has been a great success considering the time frame involved.

Engines,

The reduced stability was hinted at in the initial aero work but the magnitude of the effect was not fully realised until flight testing took place. Unfortunately, the envelope was only slowly expanded (as with all test programmes) which resulted in the full extent of the reduced stability only becoming apparent as the programme continued.

Jimmy,

As nan as mentioned, Warton is the home for flying and Woodford the home for production. Far from ideal....

I'm being slow - why does this really matter? Are the actual engineering development / flight test teams split, or are these all at Warton? If Woodford 'just' does the manufacturing, production engineering and assembly (very demanding but not disciplines that are too closely linked to day to day flight test & mission system development activities?) I'm not sure I see the problem.